The One You Feed - Bela Koe-Krompecher on Life, Recovery, and Music

Episode Date: August 24, 2021

Bela Koe-Krompecher is a writer, social worker, professor, lecturer, and owner of long-time established record label, Anyway Records. He was Eric’s sponsor in AA at one point and he, Eric, and Chris have been friends for a very long time. In this episode, Eric and Bela discuss his book, Love, Death, and Photosynthesis.But wait – there’s more! The episode is not quite over!! We continue the conversation and you can access this exclusive content right in your podcast player feed. Head over to our Patreon page and pledge to donate just $10 a month. It’s that simple and we’ll give you good stuff as a thank you!In This Interview, Bela Koe-Krompecher and I Discuss Life, Recovery, Music and …His book, Love, Death, and PhotosynthesisHow he is able to care about people but not carry their burdensHis two now-deceased best friends who struggled with mental illness and substance abuseHis history with substance abuse, mental illness, and the path of recoveryThe types of support people need in their lives in order to changeHow childhood trauma can impact the way people build trustThe term “recovery-capitol”Having faith in your choicesThe way he prioritizes living a life of non-judgement of othersWhen you want to pull away, lean inThe role of music in his lifeBela Koe-Krompecher Links:Bela’s WebsiteTwitterInstagramTalkspace is the online therapy company that lets you connect with a licensed therapist from anywhere at any time at a fraction of the cost of traditional therapy. It’s therapy on demand. Visit www.talkspace.com or download the app and enter Promo Code: WOLF to get $100 off your first month.If you enjoyed this conversation with Bela Koe-Krompecher, you might also enjoy these other episodes:Writing for Healing with Maggie SmithImprovising in Life with Stephen NachmanovitchSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Memory and emotions aren't linear. So we hear something or we see something or we're with somebody and it may bring back a rush of memory. Welcome to The One You Feed. Throughout time, great thinkers have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have. Quotes like like garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you think ring true. And yet for many of us, our thoughts don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity, self-pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't have instead of what we do. We think things that hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not just about

thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort to make a life worth living. This podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction, how they feed their good wolf. I'm Jason Alexander. And I'm Peter Tilden. And together, our mission on the Really Know Really podcast is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions like why the bathroom door doesn't go all the way to the floor. What's in the museum of failure?

And does your dog truly love you? We have the answer. Go to really know really dot com and register to win five hundred dollars. A guest spot on our podcast or a limited edition signed Jason bobblehead. The really know really podcast. Follow us on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks for joining us. Our guest on this episode is Bela Kokrompetcher, a writer, social worker, professor, lecturer, and owner of longtime established record

label Anyway Records. If it doesn't spoil his credibility too much, he is also an old friend that Eric and I have known for many, many years. Today, Bela and Eric discuss his new book, Love, Death, and Photosynthesis. Hi, Bela and Eric discuss his new book, Love, Death, and Photosynthesis. Hi, Bela. Welcome to the show. Hi, Eric. Thank you for having me. I appreciate it. It is a real pleasure. Your book is called Love, Death, and Photosynthesis, and it is really, really good. And we're going to get into all that in a minute, and we're going to talk about how you and I know each other in a minute. but let's start like we always do with the parable.

In the parable, there is a grandfather who's talking with his grandson. He says, in life, there are two wolves inside of us that are always at battle. One is a good wolf, which represents things like kindness and bravery and love. And the other is a bad wolf, which represents things like greed and hatred and fear. And the grandson stops and he thinks about it for a second. He looks up at his grandfather and he says, well, grandfather, which one wins? And the grandfather says, the one you feed. So I'd like to start off by asking you what that parable means to you in your life today and in the work that you do.

You know, we've known each other for a long time. And when you first were telling me about the podcast and the parable, over the years, it's changed for me as I listen to the show and I hear it. And I hear what other guests have talked about. I think they're just connected. They're part of the same animal, right? That you can't have one without the other. And as we live in these bodies, the bad wolf, in quotations, is just as much as part of us as the good wolf. What I think about when I hear it now, though, is discipline of being able to not fall back into the laziness that comes from feeling overwhelmed or tired, of looking for a cure, again, quotation marks, that what we feel eliminates the tiredness or the mundane of life. I work in serving people as a social worker,

and there's so much shame attached to the bad wolf, which clouds any sort of change because people get stuck with it. So, I think for the good wolf is learning those practices and being mindful of them and finding people who help us be involved in those practices. In Buddhism, they talk about the Sangha, like how important that is. Now, if you're somebody like me who really likes time alone, it's really easy to separate myself from that. So just like a wolf living among the pack, that is something that I think for myself, I tend to shy away from that, but that's what I need to be on the ball, I guess.

It's interesting to think I reflect on this often that some of the times I was most thriving, and I think you probably were too, is when we were pretty ensconced in a community. That community was a recovery community for the most part, you know, and there are some things about that that make it less desirable to us than it once did. But I just, I often think about that, how transformative it was to be in a community of people who are trying to change for the better. Yeah, I think the calmest I ever felt in my life was pre-children. I had been sober for, Pre-children, I had been sober for a few years, but really being able to devote myself to a lot of meditation and that community that we were involved in. And then kids came and college came. And while those were all good things, and I learned a lot about discipline and things like that, really learned how to be sober and active in my life, not just in that community. I took a lot of what I learned, but I was calm. There were periods where nothing it felt like affected me. But as we were talking before, I have to be really careful. We're talking about something

else of not to romanticize that because that takes me from where I am at today. But it is true when I am meditating every day, when I am journaling, I have better days. That's just the way it works. I do a lot of walks in the evening now. And that is extremely helpful for me, you know, just to go with the dog and whatever, like at night, that's helpful for me. But I think too, like back then, I mean, it was long ago, like we didn't really have smartphones. We had cell phones, but we didn't have smartphones. We didn't have this like little thing pulling at us

to distract us, this idea that we feel we need distracted, which we really don't. And so you and I have traveled in the same circles for a long time. I mean, probably all the way back into the time frame that your book talks about, which we're going to get to in a minute. But we didn't really know each other. When we did meet was when I came back to recovery the second time.

I've been sober eight years. I went out. I drank again for three or four years. I came back to AA and I met you and you became my sponsor for a while. And that was really where our friendship sort of, you know, started and has been very close since. As you were talking about that, I was thinking a little bit about sort of in Buddhism, the monastic path versus the layman's path. And I was thinking a little bit about my early days in AA were a little bit like that.

It was a little bit monastic, right? Like, all I did was go to 12-step meetings, take care of myself, meditate. I mean, I had all these, I mean, that was my life, you know, and then career started getting to be something important, children, other relationships. And, you know, then I moved more into, you know, if we were to use the Buddhist term, a lay person, you know, I had a life that had a life that mattered. And so it's been a process of really learning how do you live life in the world that you still remain connected to that deeper thing. I think that's the challenge that we all face. I think it's growth though. Again, we can look back fondly on that period of our life. But the other thing that I have to be honest about when I look at

that or might feel bad, you know, my depression might be really bad one day or, you know, something in my personal life isn't working out like I like it and try not to get hooked onto those issues with that. So, I think for me and what you have done is really transform those early exercises that we did, those spiritual exercises that we were learning as part of that group and the readings we did and the hours of meditation and integrate that in our lives. I don't think I would be nearly as effective as a therapist or social worker if I didn't do all of that, if I didn't have

that process. Although it's really easy for me to say, oh, I remember when I could meditate twice a day for 20 minutes or an hour. And every Sunday, we would go to the meditation center that we went to, how I would look forward to that. It's easy to romanticize that as we do the work that we do now. Because like I said, I don't think I could be involved in the misery of people's lives, their existence, as I do now. A friend of mine called me yesterday and said, I read the book and I'm paraphrasing here was basically she was like, I never realized how many burdens you carry for people. And my response was, I don't carry any. I don't do that, that I'm trained enough or I'm realistic enough to

not have that. Does that make sense? Totally. If you carried the burdens of everybody you worked with, I mean, your work is filled with deeply suffering people. Yeah. You know, a lot of whom don't get better. You know, and if you carried that, it would crush you. It would crush me. So I tend to live life with acceptance and non-judgment. I'm not always successful. And especially with myself, I think I judge myself harder than I've ever judged anybody in my life, which is part of the

trouble, probably why I do what I do. Your book is, I mentioned, Love, Death, and Photosynthesis. And it is different than the normal sort of book we have on here. It's really a, I guess I would call it a memoir, but it's not a sequential memoir. How would you describe it? I don't really know. So, it's a book about music, but not music. It's a book about friendship. It's a book about substance abuse. It's a book about mental illness. And it's also a book about failures of the system, right? I didn't set out to write a book. So even the nonlinear arrangement of the book, where it goes from one year to a different year, and then it might jump from 1992 to 1977 to 2008, back to 1993. Because I didn't intend to write a book, but memory and emotions

aren't linear. So we hear something or we see something, or we're with somebody and it may bring back a rush of memory or a rush of emotions. So that nonlinear narrative to me was having the freedom because I'm not a writer by profession allowed me to concentrate on whatever I was writing about in that moment. And I didn't want to have a story arc where, like Jenny May, she was born and she had all this potential and promise and she died from alcoholism and her mental illness. Somebody just wrote in The Wire, did a review of it by Rucoli and really eloquently said, you know, her life was a slow dance towards death, basically. And it's true, but I didn't want her story to be that. I wanted to infuse everything with the humor and the time that we lived in without one romanticizing it and not to have it filled with pathos as well.

Yeah. And so the book is, again, you mentioned it's about friendship. It's about music. Besides you, there are two main characters. There's a whole cast of characters, people in the Columbus music scene in the, you know, late 80s through now, really. So there's a cast of characters, but the two main people are two of your best friends who are both now dead. You know, I think the way you wrote it does allow us to experience those people without it being so linear to really experience the moments of their life, like them alive, like you really bring them to life. early because none of us had kids at that time from our early 20s up until our 30s. I certainly didn't have children until late 30s. But living in that world, that underground rock scene or art scene that many of us who felt like misfits or unmoored as children were attracted to that.

I think people, even though it's based in Columbus, most people who live through that kind of lifestyle know somebody like Jenny May and Jerry Wick, who struggled with not just substance abuse and mental illness, like we mentioned, but also expectations for themselves and trying to reconcile that with the way they were raised and what happened to them, trying to navigate that. And in the middle of that, there was me with my own substance abuse issues and my own issues with depression. I talk about a suicide attempt I had fairly young in my early 20s of eventually getting sober and finding this spiritual path that I've tried and still try struggling with to incorporate in my life

of I came out and then Jerry died fairly young and then Jenny didn't. I mean, she never got out of the clutches of mental illness and substance abuse and it killed her. And I tend to think, what if Jerry could have followed the path that I had, his own path. And I think he was there. I think he was right there. He died fairly young. He was a year or two older than me. So he was around the same age as I was when I got sober. And I know that it was something he was struggling with, but he was working and he had just bought a house. So what would have been for him? and he had just bought a house. So what would have been for him? So they both died. And then he was at the fork and he couldn't make that decision of where he was going to go. And then so I went this way and Jenny went this way. That raises some really interesting questions

because you and Jenny may come from the same small town. You live the same chaotic early adulthood life of music and sex and drugs and rock and roll, all that stuff. And then your paths do diverge. And yours leads towards sobriety, recovery, all that. And Jenny's is just, I think that line of a slow dance towards death is a good one. Like Like she just stayed on the path of mental illness and alcoholism and never got better. And looking at that from the outside, it raises a question that I know you have no answer for. What's the difference? What caused you to be able to go one direction, Jenny to go the other? And I know you wrestle with this question because you work with people all day long who have substance abuse and mental health issues. And so is there anything you can

glean about this great mystery of why some of us make it and others don't? So I'm going to put on my sort of professory social work hat here. So in change behavior, for people to change, they need several different types of support in their life. If they don't have those, change is almost impossible. I don't want to say entirely impossible, but it's very difficult. So when we look at change that people need in their lives to, for instance, change their relationship with substances, one is they need access to health care. They need an income. They also need the support of a community, whether that is a partner,

whether that is a family, whether that is friends, whether that is a faith-based community, or whether a 12-step group. And they need to have access to it. So they need to have access to transportation. They need, for the most part, not entirely, but they need some stability in their life. They need housed. Basically, they need at least three of those things in their life to change. With Jenny, she didn't have very many of those things. Jenny, she didn't have very many of those things. She did best in her life when she was married. She was more successful in her life in managing what was going on when she was involved in like a music community, which she was. Her life really took a nosedive when she moved to Miami and she was away from that community

and she got really involved. She went from alcohol to cocaine and her mental illness got worse and worse and worse. And it wasn't long before the one support she had in her life and he died that she became homeless. There's also the issue of trauma that people experience. The trauma she experienced growing up, the trauma that she experienced as a woman was much worse than the trauma that I had, which involves when people have trauma at an early age, their trust mechanism is broken. And it takes a long time to repair that. And in some people, it's never fully repaired. never fully repaired. And so for her, for instance, when she first started getting help,

seeking help for her substance abuse, which she was somewhat ambivalent always about, but the focus on her when she encountered that system was not treating her mental illness. It was a lot of blaming her for having a severe alcohol problem. I'm also really mindful of the terminology I use, so I try not to ever use the term addiction, which implies that somebody is sort of cursed and there's a stigma attached to it. So I always try to use the clinical term substance abuse. In a relationship, I think it's important, the language we use to

define our problems is extremely important because there's so much shame. I also don't use the term denial. Most people who have substance abuse issues or any sort of compulsive behavior are well aware of it. So I want to add that because I think that's really important for the listeners to hear that. And they may be saying, why is he using these terms? So when she was introduced to the system of help, there was a lot of blame from professionals with her. And the fact is that she had schizoaffective disorder that was not diagnosed for many, many, many years, that a lot of her behavior was blamed, even when she was experiencing severe hallucinations and extreme paranoia. Even in the hospital, they would blame it on alcohol withdrawal or cocaine psychosis. Even some of the healthcare issues that she was experiencing,

she had a heart condition that went undiagnosed for years because doctors said, oh, she's a heavy drinker. And she did. I've known a lot of heavy drinkers, and she drank more than maybe anybody I ever met, that the system that was there built for her wasn't supportive. Whereas for me, when I quit drinking, I had a wife who had insurance. I didn't have to work. I had transportation. I was in a community that embraced me. I didn't have all the trust issues. So in our long roundabout way, that's why I feel I was, quote, successful and she wasn't. It's really easy for people to sort of have knee-jerk reactions when dealing with substance abuse and mental illness.

Because it's in our mind and our whole lives are based on the perspective of our mind. So we feel we have some control over it. And we project those subconsciously on those who are really suffering. Saying, why don't they do anything about it? How can they do that? How can she do that? How can he do that? How can he ignore his kids and use all the rent money shooting drugs? We're so much more complicated than that. Thank you. I'm Jason Alexander. And I'm Peter Tilden. And together on the Really No Really podcast,

our mission is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions like why they refuse to make the bathroom door go all the way to the floor. We got the answer. Will space junk block your cell signal? The astronaut who almost drowned during a spacewalk gives us the answer. We talk with the scientist who figured out if your dog truly loves you

and the one bringing back the woolly mammoth. Plus, does Tom Cruise really do his own stunts? His stuntman reveals the answer. And you never know who's going to drop by. Mr. Brian Cranston is with us today. How are you, too? Hello, my friend. Wayne Knight about Jurassic Park.

Wayne Knight, welcome to Really, No Really, sir. Bless you all. Hello, Newman. And you never know when Howie Mandel might just stop by to talk about judging. Really? That's the opening? Really, No Really. Yeah, Really.

No Really. Go to reallynoreally.com. And register to win $500, a guest spot on our podcast, or a limited edition signed Jason Bobblehead. It's called Really No Really, and you can find it on the iHeartRadio app, on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I heard a term the other day, you probably are familiar with it in your professional life, but the term was recovery capital. And the idea was, you know, that certain people have more recovery capital. I often talk about this, you know, when I got sober the first time, I didn't go to jail. I was given treatment as an option. Once I sobered up, I had a family to go to. I had been raised in a upper middle class. So I had a high school diploma.

I had a recovery capital that 90% of the people that I went through treatment with and I went through the House of Hope with and the long-term treatment simply didn't have. That concept of recovery capital is really, really important. And still, we can quantify all those things. we can quantify all those things. And then there's still a mystery of why some people who seem to have no recovery capital do it. And other people who seem to have all the recovery capital in the world don't do it, don't make it, you know. And so at the same time, there's this element of choice. But how much choice an individual has, I find a fascinating idea or concept. If we talk about the level of choice you had about taking a drink versus Jenny Mae had, those might be very different levels of choice. So exactly what I was talking about was recovery capital.

And I like that idea that you bring up choice because there is choice in it. But there's also one of having faith in your choices of, am I making the right choice? Do I have the internal apparatus to stick with those choices? Was I taught about those choices? We don't always know. So we don't know what somebody who we feel has all that capital, what were they taught? Were they shamed constantly by their father? Was there some abuse issues going on? And then at the end of the day, there are some people that just want that life. And what I try to really do is live a life of non-judgment, especially for those people. I think it is so important to

enter that relationship with the person I'm helping and just building trust, just being there present for that person. Everything else comes after that. And sometimes that person won't change in the way that I wish they would. Right. But also realizing maybe for that hour I'm with them, or maybe for that brief period they're in treatment, their life is better. That they feel better about themselves.

That they have some hope in that moment. Or that I make them laugh. That I bring some levity to their life. What I always find is that people who are homeless, people who have substance abuse issues, people who have relationship issues, there's a humor there and there's always that common ground. And we know laughter brings out neurotransmitters. We feel better. It releases stress. That is so, so, so important for me and how I live my life. You know, you and I laugh quite a bit. Right. In fact, we were struggling about how are we going to get through this interview because

we're just going to be laughing the entire way. And we took 10 minutes to get it started because we were laughing. And now we're being very serious. But this nuanced idea is one I think that I think about a lot. And my thinking has changed a ton on this from the ideas I had when I came into a 12-step program to where they are now. It is that element of, for me, trying to walk that line in my own life and in the lives of people that look to me for any sort of help or guidance is sort of honoring the weights that they carry, but also showing them a vision beyond that, but not judging them if they can't quite get to it. It's a very subtle thing. I saw Gabor Maté speak. very subtle thing. I saw Gabor Maté speak. I went to a training he did, a conference in Chicago some years ago, and I know he's been a guest on it. But he said something that struck me, which was weird because I was sitting in the front. I have ADHD, so if I really want to be present, I have to sit in the front. And the night before, I was actually sort of stalking him. And he's small. He's Jewish. He actually looks a little bit like Lou Reed. So I had this weird thing when I was 17 and I met Lou Reed. I was like, oh shit,

there's Gabor Mate. So I kind of followed him around. He's like a rock star in my world. So it was interesting. He was talking. And so I had Lou Reed in my head. And he said this thing. So he's talking to 300 clinicians and said, we need to be the mirror to the people we serve to give them hope. That's our most important job. Which was crazy because I was freaking out in that moment because I'll Be Your Mirror is one of my favorite Velvet Underground songs, and I'm thinking about it, and I was like, oh, sure.

But that's true. We have to provide the hope. And I feel once we have the knowledge, like once you have the knowledge in AA, it's like once you're a cucumber to a pickle, you can't go back to being a cucumber. Once we have knowledge of something, we cannot then unpretend we don't have the knowledge, which is, I guess, can be a curse at times because there are things that I would like to do that I can't necessarily do because I have the knowledge of how unhealthy.

If I take a drink for myself, I know what comes after that. I know that button in me for myself is broken. So being able to carry the knowledge I have and the experience I have when I'm with somebody and giving them the hope, but also honoring the life that they've lived that has brought them to me. Whether they're court-ordered or whatever that looks like, they're there. Earlier, we talked about choice. When they're there seeking help, no matter what the motivation is, they're still there. Because at the end of the day, people can choose to take their own life. They can choose to pick up a drink. They can choose to misbehave sexually, whatever, or gamble,

whatever that looks like for them. But in that moment they're with us, whether it's in a client-therapist or a spiritual advisor relationship, or whether it's our partner or our child, in that moment they're with us, it sounds kind of corny, but that's the sacred space. And trying to build that and be present for that is imperative to be effective, not just for me as a clinician, but as a person. helper, the wise one, the guy who has got, I don't know what sort of degrees you have, but plenty of degrees, and yet being a person who at the same time needs to get help also. Has that been challenging for you or have you been pretty good at navigating that? You probably know this answer because at one time in the 12-step programs, I was your sponsor, but you know over the years as some of the issues I've had, if we had a scale, I've probably come to you more for advice over the years than you did me early on. There is that tendency for me to hide, to, as my therapist tells me,

lean in. When you want to pull away, lean in. He also talks a lot about parenting the subconscious, which my motivation is subconsciously is was raised, there's this part of me that feels completely, will always feel somewhat unloved. So learning how to parent that and learning how to parent that part of me also involves seeking help, of being confessional, of trying to live a transparent life, which is really difficult as an adult who grew up with secrets that I can say in all my relationships, it's always been an issue of I try to live a very honest life, but sometimes we don't even know the secrets we have. And we feed those secrets in really subliminal ways or sometimes overtly ways. So one thing I do is I tell the people I'm involved with

who are close to me is I have depression. I have ADHD. I have these issues in my life. Please be aware of these and help me with those when I need the help. But I also, I go to therapy. when I need the help. But I also, I go to therapy. And whenever I feel myself being pulled one way, I call my therapist and say, I need help with this. So again, like with expectations, like we were talking about expectations earlier with the book, I don't want to have expectations for the book because the book was supposed to be out pre-COVID. And of course, that set it aside of as expectations ramp up for me, the depression rises. And that's all internal of something that should be joyous and happy. There's this weight. And that weight is that old subconscious part of me. But it's not the bad wolf. It's just there, of learning not to judge that or feeling

bad about it. Right, right. I think that's the thing is going, well, okay, the wiser part of me does not want to have expectations about how well this book does. I know that tying myself to that sort of external measure of success is a bad idea, et cetera, et cetera. And we nurture and culture that. And then recognizing there's another part of us that's like, God, I really want this thing to do good. How's it doing? And when we see that part, not looking at it and judging it and just going, oh yeah, of course it's there. All right. I'm a human. And it's okay to have one half Paul Rubens play me in a movie. Who would play you in the movie? Paul Rubens. I don't think so. Paul Giamatti, maybe. Paul Giamatti.

Is that how you say that guy's name? Yeah, yeah, yeah. He might be more on point for you. Maybe he's already played me in Sideways. So let's have you read a section from the book. I mean, one of the most powerful parts of this book to me was the juxtaposition of you getting sober and having children and the love of your family alongside Jenny's deterioration. It's so stark to me, those two things. And there's a paragraph in the book that I think speaks a little bit towards that, that I'd like to ask you to read.

I once had a dream I had to beat the devil, literally. He was completely black, like a shadow, but also shiny and metallic. He had no features, just solid mass of slick black nothingness, a moving hole of darkness. I felt him hunting me down. I felt his presence. And in the dream, the hairs on my arms stood at attention, and the pleasure of rising fear surrounded me until I was almost connected to the devil, just inches away. The realization arose that I would be consumed by the devil if I could not think of how to beat him. He slithered around me, tall, thin, and wispy as if he were a cloak, the evil flecking off him as if he were an active volcano. There was only one way to conquer him, but how? Knowing the devil communicates in riddles, I had to think quick, let the answer come to me,

and I knew it had to be obvious because evil is never that complicated. So I thought of my young daughter and all the love I had for her. I leaned in and hugged the devil, her. I leaned in and hugged the devil. And with that, the action of love, the evil from the devil, melted away. I had beaten the devil. Thank you. thinking of your daughter sometimes it is that simple reminds me of the old buddhist tale of a millerapa who comes home in a cave full of demons trying to get the demons to leave i'm going to shorten the story but eventually the way he gets rid of the worst demon is he put his head in the demon's mouth and just said okay have at there I am. Similar story. But I just love that anchoring to something as simple as the love of your kids. It's really easy to see the world as me versus them or us versus them or focusing on the one thing. This morning, I was speaking of children, I was meditating this morning and my

daughter, who's just oblivious to what's going on, sat down across from me and poured a bowl of popcorn. And first, it was early in the morning, so I was disgusted that she was eating popcorn, but she was completely enjoying the popcorn, i.e. eating it very obnoxiously. And I had to, in that moment, remind myself, because I was so tempted to say, put the popcorn away. Eat with your mouth closed. Don't smack. But in that moment, I had to remind myself, she's really enjoying the popcorn. Allow her that. Even though I really wanted to turn that moment into my moment when it's our moment, because we all exist in the world. So, learning how to take the pause and realizing that we all

are a fountain of love that we sometimes don't understand. Yeah, I love that. Nothing as funny to me as meditating with the goal of allowing whatever arises to arise and disappear and then find something really annoying arising. Yeah. And being like, that should not be happening. And if I wasn't meditating, I... I'm Jason Alexander.

And I'm Peter Tilden. And together on the Really No Really podcast, our mission is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions like why they refuse to make the bathroom door go all the way to the floor. We got the answer. Will space junk block your cell signal? The astronaut who almost drowned during a spacewalk gives us the answer. We talk with the scientist who figured out if your dog truly loves you and the one bringing back the woolly mammoth. Plus, does Tom Cruise really do his own stunts?

His stuntman reveals the answer. And you never know who's going to drop by. Mr. Bryan Cranston is with us today. How are you, too? Wayne Knight about Jurassic Park. Wayne Knight, welcome to Really, No Really, sir. Bless you all. Hello, Newman. And you never know

when Howie Mandel might just stop by to talk about judging. Really? That's the opening? Really No Really. Yeah, really. No really. Go to reallynoreally.com and register to win $500, a guest spot on our podcast, or a limited edition signed Jason bobblehead. It's called Really No Really, and you can find it on

the iHeartRadio app, on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I would never catch it. When it arises as I'm actually meditating, I find it both funny, because I still am like, stop eating popcorn, you know? And I then can also pause and be like, all right, hang on. Can I do this differently? I think it gets so complicated, too, too with kids because then it's not just, well, do I want that going on around me or not?

Then the whole complication of what role do I have in teaching them, in guiding them? I mean, it just gets so complicated. It gets very complicated. And sometimes I feel so sensitive to everything around me. And right now, as you were talking, I was thinking about whenever I'm on a Zoom meeting at work, on Tuesday mornings, they come and cut the grass. Like, every morning.

So when you mentioned that, I was thinking, oh, it's like when my Tuesday morning meeting, they're cutting the grass. And as I'm thinking about that, there's a lawnmower outside where that dude's just doing his job. It's funny. I've joked before that my greatest, like my koan in life are gas-powered leaf blowers. They are so loud. They are so obnoxious. I said to Ginny the other day, she's like, how do you feel about edgers? I was like, oh, edgers are okay. I mean, they're loud, but you need an edger.

She's like, what is it you think these guys with the leaf blowers are going to do? I was like, well, how about a broom? She's like, they can't use a broom. How about a rake? How about just letting the leaves be where they're at? Just let them be. It's so funny. But like you said, that guy's just mowing his grass

just and to him the center of the world is him mowing his grass and to us the center of the world is sitting right in this room everybody has that experience and he might i am the center of the world he might be loving it that might be his away from whatever's going on in his house in his head he might have his headphones on of course he can't hear him because the thing is on. But he might be just really enjoying himself. This is his moment, and I'm judging him because he's interfering with us. Who would be mowing their grass on a Sunday afternoon, for God's sake?

What a dick. Day of the Lord. Let's talk about music for a second. You've got a line in the book that I loved. Music was the balm that allowed a mind to turn off and get lost in the wonder of being. I just think that's a great line. And you and I are both huge music fans. I mean, you know, a lot of our lives have been oriented around it.

You still own a record label, released tons of records. So music has been centrally important to you. still own a record label, released tons of records. So music has been centrally important to you. Talk about the role that music plays in your life today and also just in your healing and recovery. From my earliest age, I loved music. I still remember Ed Folkway's records growing up, and I listened to them from my earliest age. And I discovered music really third grade when my family had moved. I think I was going on my fourth school or something. It was pretty crazy. But just discovering I could put on a record and be lost. And people who have substance abuse issues tend to actually process the environment differently. I know you probably know this already, but what is going on

our physical environment, we process it differently. And so with music, I have such a strong emotional connection to it. It's always been the one thing I could trust more than anything. And it has always been able to reflect what I'm feeling inside or what I aspire to feel inside. So if I was going to go out drinking or whatever, I could put on a Ramones record or a Rolling Stones record. Or when I got home at 3 o'clock that night, I could put on a Townsend's Ant record or a Tim Harden record or a Phil Oakes record, which was usually a sign not to be disturbed by whomever I was living with.

At this point, I buy music a lot every week. I listen to music constantly. I watch very little television. I don't really enjoy movies that much, but I can always get lost in music. So I'm listening to it constantly at the gym, in my car, at home, whether it's classical music or whether it's rock. I've been listening to a lot of reggae this year, that it is this opportunity to feel safe and to either, like I said,

affirm my mood or change my mood. either, like I said, affirm my mood or change my mood. And, you know, it's safer in some ways than sex. It's safer than coffee. It's safer than all of these other things. I do wish, because I have people in my family who I love deeply, like I love my sister deeply and my mom, but they don't have this relationship with music that I have. And I think it's important for me to keep cultivating that.

When I got sober, I really looked for artists that had the same experience as me or that I knew they did, whether it was there's a series of Lou Reed records in the 80s that I call his sobriety records, where he quit drinking with the Blue Mask and then Legendary Hearts and New Sensations. Those are like his sobriety trilogy. Those songs, even though I listened to them when I was younger, when I got sober, really made an impact on me. Some of the Nick Cave records, a lot of spiritual type records, Van Morrison, and then a lot of classical choral music always has moved me, and I found solace in that.

It was interesting. I always listened to a lot of country music, especially when I was drinking George Jones, Merle Haggard, so on and so forth. And for years, I couldn't listen to any because it was too triggering for me. And now I can listen to those records and really, really appreciate them in a different way without having to be pulled towards the bottle or pulled towards self-pity, I guess, which is so common with substance use. Yeah, I think what you said there is really interesting.

To use it to either affirm or change my mood. It is helpful sometimes to affirm our mood, to feel what we're feeling and hear somebody else say it. And then sometimes it's really helpful to have it changed. And it's interesting, I have a similar relationship with certain types of music that used to really speak to me that don't in the same way anymore. Now that I live a life that's, you know, I guess focused on trying to heal or become better. I lost my love of just the complete darkness with no light stuff. I kind of want, you know, not Hallmark redemption, but some kind of redemption. I want hope.

Something when you were talking, Eric, I was thinking about connectivity, which really is the one thread I think throughout the book, like searching to be connected, whether through substance abuse, whether through music. I think music is the core of it, even more than substance abuse or sex or friendship. It's like music is the one thing that really binds us together in that world that I lived in, in the world I still live in, of wanting this yearning to feel connected. Music offers that, and it offers it for free. And there's nothing, for me, there was nothing greater at times than being in a room full of people. And I've always been somebody that had to be up next to the stage. What I realized later was that had to do with my own social anxiety is being up front.

I'm not in a crowd. I hate being in a crowd. I don't even like going to the grocery store. But when I was up front, it was like me and then the music and feeling that go through me. And it is still important. Of course, we miss that with the way the world is right now. And it is still important. Of course, we miss that with the way the world is right now. But being in a room full of people who are also feeling that is quite an experience that in some ways, like a crowded bar, crowded nightclub with loud guitars, I fell at home because everybody was experiencing the same thing. And it was joyous. And it same thing. And it was joyous

and it was wonderful. And it was unspoken. You didn't have to explain anything of what was going on because we all felt it. And even in relationships, even in really intimate moments, the best, most profound intimate moments for me is when I don't have to speak or explain myself when I'm with somebody. Whether it's a partner, whether it's my children, whatever that is, I don't have to say anything. That we just get it. We just get it. We're just holding hands or making love or laughing. And that moment of laughter where, it's like electricity yeah i often think

music for me is one of the easiest pathways into emotions which are often something that i can be an arm's distance from music and the other one is witnessing some act of genuine kindness. Those two things sort of like plug me right sort of back into the heart. And so music has been reliable in that way for a long time. My kids love music. I really like listening to music with both of them because they both have pretty good taste. I mean, sometimes my son will put on the mumble rap, although he's growing out of that. Seeing them get lost in it and being able to appreciate it. My daughter really likes a lot of the newer female songwriters, Phoebe Bridgers,

and she really likes Taylor Swift and Lucy Dacus. Listening to those and remember driving around and playing R.E.M REM for my mom when I was 15. My mom was like listening to it and talking about it that again, like, okay, what else? We're not going to talk about anything else, but we were experiencing this together. Yeah. That is a moment I felt like never got with my parents. My memory is so bad, but I have a clear memory of my father. And I don't have a lot of them, but I have one clear, very emotional moment. It was shortly after him and my mom divorced and I was in the car with him. And I don't know who the song is that ain't nothing going to break my stride. You know that one? I want to say Billy Ocean,

but I don't think it is. And my dad looked at me and he said, this is kind of my theme song. And for my dad, that was a big opening of emotion. You know, that he would need a song to encourage him, to strengthen him. That was a revelation to me that like I did. I mean, I needed songs all the time. That is about the only glimpse I've seen of the same passion and of course it's not a great song but yeah you're like dad really that song well that's why we don't get along exactly although that song has a special place to me because of that

that memory that's funny you mentioned that because I had a stepfather. My mom married a Methodist minister and he had some pretty severe depression and some alcohol issues. He was a nice guy. But I remember one time he was driving me to the airport. I was third grade or fourth grade. He was driving me to the airport. I was flying back because I was living with my dad. And a Dr. Hook song came in. And I'm trying to think what... Ooh, spending the night

together. It's a terrible song. But he was singing it. And I remember that year I asked for that record for my birthday. It's a terrible record. But because in that moment of this cold man, he was being real and singing along with this song. So I realized I connected with him in that moment.

And still, every time I hear that song, which I want to say intentionally is not very often, but if I hear that song, I still have the record just because it holds that space for me. Well, I think that is a great place for us to wrap up sharing memories of music and our parents. The book is wonderful. Listeners, I highly recommend it. It is a great book. We'll have links to it in the show notes. And Bela, thanks so much for coming on. I've been wanting to do this for a long time.

Thank you, Eric and Chris. I'm shocked that we made it through an hour without curse words and saying something really obnoxious and cackling. We did pretty good. We did pretty good. Yep. And so I'm very proud of us. But again, it means a lot that you invited me on, that you took the time and the generosity to read the book. that you took the time and the generosity to read the book. And that's like such a humbling thing when people read or listen to something you put out in the world. So thank you. I appreciate it.

Indeed it is. Thank you. If what you just heard was helpful to you, please consider making a monthly donation to support the One You Feed podcast. When you join our membership community with this monthly pledge, you get lots of exclusive members-only benefits. It's our way of saying thank you for your support. Now, we are so grateful for the members of our community. We wouldn't be able to do what we do without their support,

and we don't take a single dollar for granted. To learn more, make a donation at any level, and become a member of the One You Feed community, go to oneyoufeed.net slash join. The One You Feed podcast would like to sincerely thank our sponsors for supporting the show.